Phil Reisman: Keys to good county exec are French toast, yarmulkes and kids

Jul. 27, 2013

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Catching up on my reading, I chanced upon the August issue of Westchester Magazine, which contained an extraordinary day-in-the-life profile of Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino.

Friends, we have found Mr. Perfect — the anti-Carlos Danger. This incumbent need not be re-elected; he’s ripe for canonization.

For this piece of journalistic enterprise wasn’t merely positive in tone and content; this was sheer campaign propaganda served on an irony-free platter of gooey anecdotes and observations (“When he smiles, his dimples appear on cue.”).

Don’t blame the writer. In this business you gamely do as the editors command — and the editors in this case work for Today Media, which is owned by the Martinellis, a Republican family with deep political roots.

The truth is they are rarely critical of anybody, regardless of party affiliation. (Disclosure: Some years back they did a profile of me that was so generous I hardly recognized myself.) But Astorino’s well-paid GOP strategists undoubtedly did a triumphant Riverdance jig after reading this love letter.

The piece is organized around time segments as the county executive, or “C.E.” as his underlings call him, makes “whirlwind appearances” at Little League openings, charity events and various ethnic celebrations. Driven from place to place in a Chevy Tahoe, Astorino is attended by a tired cliche of political life — the fussy aide who is always glancing at his watch and worrying about time as his boss, beloved by the masses, can’t pull himself away from the fun at the Polish Community Center.

Along the way, we find that Astorino is popular with just about every constituent food group. For instance: “He seems to have many friends among the 10 percent of Westchester’s population that is Jewish.” Consequently, he carries two yarmulkes in his glove compartment, one of which is imprinted with his name in Yiddish and the other which advertises the county government website.

He shows up at an event that also is attended by some Democratic officials, namely Rep. Eliot Engel and Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano. Spano introduces Astorino as “our guy.” Engel, the “Where’s Waldo?” of Congress who manages to get in the picture with every president before and after delivering the State of the Union address, appears in the background of an accompanying photo of Astorino.

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Astorino’s party may be outnumbered by nearly 2 to 1, but the implied message here is clear: Look, he gets along with important Democrats.

Back in the Chevy Tahoe, Astorino regales the reporter with stories, like the time he was pulled over in White Plains for speeding.

“The cop took one look at me and laughed,” Astorino said. The story spread. The police commissioner called him up. He laughed, too.

Unmentioned is whether the C.E. got a speeding ticket.

He tells another story about the first time he sent an innocuous tweet and how it panicked his aides who thought somebody had hacked into his account. Given the electronic misadventures of New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, who gave new meaning to the term “junk mail,” it’s odd that no reference was made to the aforementioned Carlos Danger. But then, as I said, this magazine profile is free of irony.

The article invites us to be awestruck at Astorino’s ability to balance his frenetic public life with his responsibilities as a husband and father of three very cute children, who are presented in a series of family-album photos. He takes them out for pizza, reads them stories and tucks them into bed. We are told that on Saturday mornings he makes the kids croissant French toast with a splash of amaretto in the batter, an endearing detail expressly designed to woo approximately half the voters in Westchester: women.

We get it. Against the odds, he’s still a super dad. And yet this one-dimensional, Ozzie and Harriet pastiche of wholesome goodness seems so calculated in its presentation that it takes on an unreal quality of utter blandness, giving credence to the late Ed Koch’s infamous observation: “Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It’s sterile. It’s nothing. It’s wasting your life, and people do not wish to waste their lives once they’ve seen New York!”

That may be unfair as far as Astorino goes. But, my God, does this man ever belch after a few beers, or absent-mindedly scratch his posterior?

Perhaps not. One of his aides says he’s never even seen him lose his temper.

If overly flattering puff pieces are bellwethers of success, Astorino already has this election won. His Democratic opponent Noam Bramson, the mayor of New Rochelle, is barely mentioned in the article. He’ll have to create his own fictive universe.

This may not be worrying the challenger. But it is telling that he has started to copy Astorino’s tactic of selling the brand by holding “town hall meetings” across the county.